Health & Pharmaceuticals

Health & Pharmaceuticals

Statistics and facts on health and pharmaceuticals

Health is a term that describes a person’s mental and physical condition. As a more specific definition, health is the state of being free from physical and mental injury or illness. Managing health on a national scale is one of the most heavily-debated policy issues in many countries. Setting up a functioning health system is a challenge that requires the cooperation of many parties across public and private sectors. The health system of the United States is often criticized for being overly costly and inefficient. The United States has the highest health costs per capita worldwide and still the U.S. lags behind other industrialized countries in terms of health indicators such as life expectancy, infant mortality and health insurance coverage.

Health is also a large industry. For example, health service sites in the United States create some 16 million jobs. Another example is the pharmaceutical industry which generates almost one trillion U.S. dollars of revenue worldwide. That makes it one of the larger global industries. Pharmaceutical companies manufacture a large scope of medicines for humans and animals. Since the global population and life expectancy are steadily increasing, and technological progress is very fast, the pharmaceutical industry appears relatively crisis-proof. On the other hand, pharmaceutical companies are under pressure from generic manufacturers or spending cuts by national health policies.

Besides the pharmaceutical sector, all other areas of health and healthcare are included in this category. Physicians and hospitals are the groundwork of every health system. Public and private health programs are responsible for availability, distribution, efficiency and affordability of health services. Care and support is an important issue, especially for disabled people and the elderly. Medical care is difficult to imagine without modern medical technology.

Top statistics in the health category cover topics concerning health spending, hospital and physician infrastructure, and U.S. state rankings. There is also a wide base of information, globally and nationally, on many diseases and health conditions. This includes prevention and therapy.